Happy Father's Day!

Dev is away in China today and can't celebrate with us, but the kids gave him their presents early. Arthur made him a card, and Beatrice painted a wooden tool chest with the word ZEUS on it, but the best present was this robotics protocol Beatrice wrote for a Health Robot for Dev.

Robot Program
Every Day

1. Give diabetes medicine to Dev 
2. Jam lots of fruits and vegetables
3. Take Dev to gym (make him do all the exercise classes)
4. Have Dev calm down
5. Make Dev take nap
6. Make Dev drink 10 glasses of water
7. Make Dev drink 8 glasses of milk
8. Take Dev to pool
9. DO NOT let Dev eat sweets
10. Have Dev bike 2 times around the block
11. Give Dev a healthy meal
12. Have Dev eat crackers for a healthy snack
13. Have Dev eat oranges
14. Have Dev roller skate

Every Night

1. Read 30 fairy tales to Dev
2/3 -[ Something about a "sleeping drink"]
4. Go to bed
5. Get up
6. Give Dev buttered toast for breakfast
7. Go to charging station
8. Get out
9. Care for Dev until well



Close-up: I love how visibly unhappy Dev is here, as the robot lifts him onto an exercise bike and then force-feeds him a "sleeping drink."

Happy Father's Day!

(I just now noticed what an accurate depiction of our duvet cover that is.)

Spring Gardening

It wouldn't be spring if I didn't post a lot of gardening photos.

All of the bulbs we planted in November came up beautifully:

 

We planted spinach, kale, lettuce, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cauliflower, beets, carrots, potatoes, spring onions, and garlic, with mixed success - we had tons of spinach, kale, lettuce, beets, carrots, and beans, but squirrels or rats ate most of our potatoes and the broccoli, cauliflower, and Brussels sprouts all failed to get very big.

A few of the potatoes we saved.

  

Sancho with the spinach and kale

 

 



Pumpkins and beans

 

Five pounds of green beans

Pickled green beans

 



 

Apple blossoms

 

In the children's garden

  

Best of Spring

Some of the best photos from Spring 2015:

These pictures of the kids from their spring camp at Stough Canyon capture them both perfectly.

Beatrice reading under the tree at our local library

That's not how painting works, William.



 

Beatrice at Descanso Gardens in her favorite area, the Japanese gardens



 

 

Waking up the kids at midnight to go see the grunions:

Dev shines a light on grunion.

 

Hugging at Chuck E. Cheese

 

Cracking up while reading Wayside School is Falling Down

We raised and released butterflies again this year, as well as moths. As you can see, B was sad to see them go.

 

 

Arthur at the library for story time

Teaching B about the earth's motion around the sun



Arthur as Hector (Beatrice was Achilles, of course)

 

William at Underwood Family Farm

Arthur killing it at karaoke, singing Katy Perry's "Roar"

Beatrice dressed like Sappho for a school dress-up day

We got a new chicken, Lilli III, seen here being in the bath:

 

Tea party

At LACMA, Arthur decides he wants to be an artist's model.

 

Hipcooks class with Summer, Amy, and Amy

 

Visiting Lilli in San Jose

We were an IKEA test house.

Photos from my birthday party at Edendale

On to summer ...